Distinctive capabilities

History

With a history spanning more than 100 years, the number and variety of cases we have handled in that time is unrivalled. The knowhow which has been accumulated during our long history is passed on to the next generation of lawyers, who bring new viewpoints and ways of thinking to our firm.

Four locations in Japan

Having four offices located in Kobe, Tokyo Imabari and Osaka is one of our biggest assets. By having offices in multiple locations, we can reduce the travel time required by our lawyers and our clients, which leads to a reduction in costs and the ability to provide legal services promptly over a wide range of practice areas. Our offices are connected by a videoconferencing system that removes the need for our lawyers to travel and allows for effective communication over long distances.

International expansion

In 2016 we established Higashimachi Business Consulting (Shanghai), Ltd., and are committed to providing reliable legal services in China. We have several lawyers who are capable of providing advice in English or Chinese and have relationships with local law firms in several countries, so we are able to provide full legal services, from advice to arbitration and litigation, to foreign clients based both inside and outside of Japan. In particular, we have a partnership with the German law firm PETERS Rechtsanwälte, which enables us to respond to a wide range of legal needs in relation to European and German law.

Diversity of experience

We currently have 27 lawyers with a distinctive diversity of career experience, including a former chief prosecutor, former government officials, adjunct university professors, company external directors and auditors, marine counsellors, a patent attorney, a tax attorney and a foreign attorney. This enables us to examine cases from multiple perspectives and gives us the capacity to handle large-scale and urgent cases.

Teamwork

We generally employ a system where each case is handled by multiple lawyers. By examining cases from multiple perspectives, preventing errors through multiple checks, and continually improving our lawyers’ skills through the sharing of know-how, this ultimately leads to us being able to provide better legal service to our clients.